Heavenly Father I praise You for another year to attempt to be a wise servant of yours. I praise You for the air breathed, the wife, children, and grandchildren You have made a part of my life. I praise You for allowing me the freedom to worship in a church that believes Your word and tries to serve You with all their heart.
Holy Spirit as I start this year and many who pray with me, help us to remember that You gave us, above all creation, the opportunity to choose how we will live. Let me remember and incorporate “Romans 12:1&2—In view of God’s mercy, to offer my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is my spiritual act of worship. I will not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of my mind, by praying, giving, fasting, and reading Your word. Then I will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” This should be my prayer, my desire, and my practice every morning when I wake up and then lived throughout the day.
Holy Spirit help me to daily seek Your kingdom and Your righteousness as You commanded in Matthew 6:33. Help me to make my meditation and speaking pleasing to You daily so that I, like David, become a man after Your own heart. Help me to understand with the ability to choose, I am responsible for forgiving others, I am responsible for seeking and applying Your wisdom. You do not move, You do not walk away from your end of every covenant, but I can. I can choose to sin. This does not count mistakes, this is my doing a willful act against God, his principles, or what I know to be disobedience for me. Help me to remember what Paul told us when he wrote: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the One working in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12&13
Holy Spirit, I know that my choices define who I am and what I will be. I can not control the circumstances that I face in life, but I can control how I face them and if I let You lead me through them. Let my trust be in You and let my choices be with the wisdom You provide.
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever, Amen. (Romans16:25-27)